BRUINS NOTEBOOK: Home has been just fine for B’s this season

Sunday

Nov 30, 2008 at 12:01 AMNov 30, 2008 at 6:09 PM

Bob Stern

Home is where the wins are.

At least, it’s been that way for the Bruins this season.

“Yeah, it’s been good actually,” said Bruins coach Claude Julien about the TD Banknorth Garden. “Our guys have responded well in this building, and the few times where we’ve fallen behind early in the game, we’ve battled back.”

Following Saturday night’s 4-1 victory over the Red Wings, the Bruins have played 11 home games, and they’re 9-1-1 for 19 points at the Garden. Their lone regulation loss was to Toronto, 4-2, on Oct. 23. They also lost a shootout game against Pittsburgh, 2-1, on Oct. 20.

Their 19 points at home boosted them into a third-place tie with Washington in the NHL. Entering Saturday’s schedule, San Jose, which has played 13 home games, leads everyone with 25 points followed by the Rangers (15 home games) with 21 points.

“Overall, I think our performance has been pretty good,” said Julien. “It has been pretty good the whole month. We wanted to establish a better presence at home than we did last year, and so far it’s working out well for us.”

The B’s have now won nine straight home games, all in regulation. That’s their longest home winning streak since they put together an 11-game streak from Dec. 5, 1982-Jan. 29, 1983.

That home record should prove valuable late in the season; beginning Feb. 24, the Bruins will play 14 of their final 22 games at home.

Centers of attention:

The Bruins have shown strength all over the ice all year, but the play of their centers has Julien singing their praises.

“I think we have good depth down the middle,” he said. “I can tell you there’s a guy in Providence right now that is also a real good player in (Vladimir) Sobotka. I think we have some real good depth in the middle, and we’re happy about that.”

Marc Savard, who centers the first line between Milan Lucic and Phil Kessel, leads the team in points with 30, is first in assists with 22 and trails only Kessel in goals with eight.

David Krejci is third in points with 19 (7-12-19), Patrice Bergeron, still finding his way this year after missing most of last year with a severe concussion, has 14 points and Stephane Yelle has eight points.

“It’s been a real key for our club this year, being able to play four lines and feeling comfortable because those guys do a good job down low on our own end,” said Julien. “As you’ve seen, I’ve put our fourth line against other team’s top lines at times, and they’ve responded well. That’s been a huge help for our hockey club this year, having that depth down the middle.”

Praising Krejci:

Krejci skates on the third line with Michael Ryder and Blake Wheeler, but Julien singled out his young center.

“We’ve got to give him a lot of credit,” said the coach. “First of all, his creativity, his vision on the ice and everything else just seem to be so good; he makes people around him better. He makes some unbelievable plays.

“The more you see him, the more he builds confidence in himself, and he has shown that game in and game out. We like the way he’s really progressed since being called back up last year.”

Heading south:

The Bruins will play four of their next five games on the road beginning Thursday at Tampa Bay. They’ll be in Miami to play Florida on Saturday.

After coming home to face the Lightning a week from Monday, they have road games schedule at Washington on Dec. 10 and Atlanta on Dec. 12.

Odds and ends:

The Bruins ended November with an 11-1-1 record for 23 points. It was their best month since they had 24 points in December 1978. … Manny Fernandez extended his winning streak to six games, the longest for a Bruins goalie since Andrew Raycroft won six straight from Jan. 7-20, 2004. … Kessel extended his career-best pointstreak to nine games, tied for the third-longest streak in the league this season. … Matt Hunwick had his career-best six-game point streak snapped. … The Bruins played their fifth of 16 sets of consecutive-night games. They are now 4-0-1 in the first game and 4-0-1 in the second.

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